Saga missed a trick: it could cut costs and keep over-50s happy, says JEFF PRESTRIDGE

I’m pleased to report that reader Graeme Forsyth’s petition to persuade over-50s specialist Saga to honor a lifetime subscription to the monthly magazine continues to gain popularity.

So far, 1,200 people have backed it — and readers continue to contact me, outraged by Saga’s decision to break the deal.

The original Saga offering, made in the late 1990s and early 2000s, allowed customers to pay a one-time fee in exchange for shipping the magazine.

But Saga has now changed the deal, blaming rising print and shipping costs. Instead of a paper version, customers have been told they will receive a digital version. Those who wish to continue with the print edition can only do so if they pay an annual fee of £29.95.

Saga insists it did not violate the terms of the original lifetime membership it offered its customers. This promised ‘twelve copies of the magazine Saga per year for life’.

Still, it’s disingenuous of Saga to believe that customers signed up thinking they’d receive a monthly copy of the magazine in their mailbox.

There are some things I find hard to fathom about this horrible episode.

First, most of the people who took up this offer are now quite elderly. Saga could have just let the deal run its course. It wouldn’t have bankrupted the company, that’s for sure.

As reader Christine Isbister put it to me a few days ago, “Since the lifetime offer closed in 2010, it will obviously end when we all leave (shake off this mortal spiral). Longevity should mean what it says.’ Absolute.

Second, the decision to penalize customers who haven’t embraced the digital world (for a variety of reasons, including ill health) is wrong.

In hindsight, it would have been a better strategy to ask lifetime subscribers if they’d be willing to switch to a digital magazine — and perhaps give them a gift (a voucher for a future Saga product) in return. Those unwilling to go digital would have continued to receive the magazine.

Since Saga says most lifetime subscribers would have loved to go digital, such a move would have reduced costs while keeping ALL customers happy.

The last word goes to Graeme, who is currently being nursed at home by his lovely wife Mary. This is after falling down a flight of stairs, breaking ten ribs and now having to wear a head brace for the next twelve weeks.

Graeme is convinced that Saga needs to turn around on this issue, hence the petition – https://chng.it/2cMFrWk4. He has also told the CEO (Euan Sutherland) what he thinks.

On Friday, Graeme said to me, “Good managers recognize they’ve made an error of judgment—and then go and correct it.”

Mr. Sutherland, will you do that? I am all eyes and ears.

Why adopting a phone booth is a good idea

I love British Telecom’s decision to continue offering councils and charities the chance to get their hands on iconic – but underused – £1 red phone boxes.

Ahead of the centenary of the red phone box next year, BT will allow communities to adopt up to 1,000.

They could then be used for all kinds of good purposes – for example a book exchange facility, a home for a defibrillator, a mini art gallery or a flower show, such as this one in Bath, left.

At their peak in the 1990s, there were 100,000 payphones nationwide.

But the advent of the cell phone made most of them obsolete (I used one as a teenager to call my first girlfriend away from my mom’s prying ears).

As a result, there are now 20,000 of which only 3,000 are red boxes.

Since BT launched the Adopt A Kiosk program 15 years ago, more than 7,200 red telephone boxes have been purchased by councils for the benefit of their communities.

Occasionally miscreants spoil things: the community telephone box at my home in Wokingham, Berkshire, has recently had its defibrillator temporarily removed. But these adopted kiosks are a welcome addition to the high street.

Only municipalities and registered charities can adopt them. So if you think your community would benefit from a red box, give them a push.

The world of the haves and the have-nots…

The banks have and have not. In one corner are hundreds of thousands of savers who receive between 1.75 and 3.3 percent for having a Flexible Savings Account with NatWest. The base rate is currently 5.25 percent.

The other states Dame Alison Rose, the former CEO of the NatWest Group, who could receive £2.4 million over the next year following her recent resignation.

This was the result of misleading a senior BBC journalist about the reasons behind the decision by Coutts, NatWest’s private banking arm, to close Nigel Farage’s account.

In doing so, she exposed Farage, a regular client, to widespread attacks from merry political opponents.

She subsequently denied providing his private details to the BBC.

Assuming a NatWest saver has £100,000 in flexible saver, they will earn £2,700 in interest over the next year (provided rates don’t change).

This represents 0.1125 percent of what Mrs. Rose could earn over the next 12 months sitting at home.

Like I said, the haves and the have nots.

The funds that are not “absolute” disasters

No one has all the answers – except perhaps Warren Buffett – when it comes to investing. The ‘cert’ of one’s investment is the ‘not touching’ the other.

So it was inevitable that my outright rejection of absolute return funds seven days ago would not go unchallenged.

Among those who responded to my lack of love for these investments was asset manager RBC Brewin Dolphin. She believes that “there’s still room for the right kind of absolute return fund.”

To be clear, these funds aim to generate positive returns regardless of prevailing market and economic conditions. They aim to do this by investing in a mix of stocks, bonds and complex financial instruments that most investors would never consider using in a Sunday month.

Yet some of these vehicles, notably the Abrdn Global Absolute Return Strategies, have gone horribly wrong, resulting in losses rather than positive returns. In fact, it is so different from the message that it is merged with another Abrdn fund.

In my opinion, cash is the best absolute return generator, while a diversified stock portfolio (an equity fund) is the most sensible way to build long-term wealth.

RBC Brewin Dolphin disagrees. It believes that if interest rates peak, the fortunes of some of these funds will improve, creating “less volatility than stocks and potentially higher returns than bonds.

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The “like” list includes three publicly traded mutual funds – BH Macro, Personal Assets Trust and Ruffer – which they say offer “something different for investors” and have been in the business for some time.

These funds are not actually categorized as absolute return funds – BH Macro is a hedge fund, while the other two are ‘flexible’ investments.

But since capital preservation – and valuation – are embedded in their DNA, I think RBC Brewin Dolphin has (almost) the right to label them as such.

To be clear, their one-year returns are all negative – down 22 percent in the case of BH Macro – and hardly argue for an absolute return.

But the five-year numbers are much better, ranging from 19 percent (Ruffer), 23 percent (Personal Assets) to 60 percent (BH Macro). All superior to the 15 percent return of the FTSE All-Share Index.